Cuddles and Cramps
by Lizzy.fics
Summary: Pure fluff! Draco spends the morning trying to distract Hermione from her cramps using laughter and cuddles. One shot.


"Darling, is there a reason for your intense hatred of toast this morning?" Draco asked with concern in his voice. He knew she had a heavy load at work, but he hadn't thought it was reaching the point where he needed to remind her she had assistants and coworkers to carry part of the load yet. "Is your tea cold already?"

Hermione moaned and put her head in her hands. "Just cramps. They're always the worst on the first day."

"Oh, right. Is there anything I can do for you?" Draco offered immediately and upon thinking further added, "fill up your hot water muggle smelly thing?"

Hermione laughed good naturedly and nodded without dragging up the old argument about hot water bottles being called bottles. "That would be nice, I always forget they exist for some reason."

Draco stood up and gave Hermione a kiss on the head before leaving to go attend to his task. While he was gone Hermione moved from the breakfast table to the couch and wrapped a blanket around herself before lying down.

It wasn't long before Draco was back with the hot water bottle and one of Hermione's favorite chocolate bars as well. He offered her the hot water bottle which she placed between her back and the back of the sofa. He knelt on the ground beside her and propped his elbows on the sofa cushions. "I brought you some chocolate. I hate it when you feel like this, I wish there was more I could do."

Hermione smiled at him and then kissed him. "Why don't you jump up here with me and let me hold you?"

"You want to be the big spoon?"

"Of course! I have an incredibly sweet and understanding boyfriend and I want to hold him as close as I can."

"Can't argue with you there," Draco laid down in front of her on the large sofa and adjusted slightly and she wrapped her arms and legs around him. They didn't do this every month, but typically she was at work all day on the first day of her period. He knew better than to suggest that she take the day off every month, so he was just glad to have the opportunity to make her feel a bit better from time to time.

"Haven't you found anything in your research that could alleviate the pain better?"

"No, everything I've found was theoretical and seemed too risky given the delicate nature of the human reproductive system. The balance of hormones and organs to take into account varying so much between individuals makes it very risky to use magic to alter. You might remove your pain and your fertility all in one swoop."

"That's rubbish. You were telling me about the advanced knowledge muggles have about the body just yesterday, surely with that kind of knowledge something could be done."

"Well, it's not as if they have perfected it themselves. It's all tied in with misogyny and politics if you ask me, but even muggle birth control is full of risky side effects in addition to not being one hundred percent effective."

They lay in contented silence for a while just listening to the sounds of the clock on the mantle and of the wind against the window pains.

"You've never told me what your Mom used to do. Didn't she have any tricks?"

Draco started laughing uncontrollably at the idea of his mother ever discussing anything to do with a single bodily function with him, let alone her period. "Hermione, the closest I got to knowing that she even had a menstrual cycle was realizing that her trips to the spa happened at the same time every month." He kept laughing while talking as if the realization had been an entire episode of his life.

Hugging Draco a bit tighter to him Hermione laughed softly into his shoulder. "What's so funny about a spa trip?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just, the way I finally realized it was after that wonky lesson Snape gave us on werewolves in third year. Do you remember that? Professor Lupin was out sick so Snape filled in and ignored what we had been studying to go on and on about werewolves. After that I began to notice things that happened with monthly regularity and I noticed my mother in particular had a habit of disappearing for several days each month. The first two months after that it happened to more or less coincide with the full moon, too."

Hermione and Draco were both laughing loudly at this point, Draco holding his stomach starting to feel cramps of his own from laughing too hard.

"Oh, Draco! Only a boy could think their mother being a werewolf was a more likely scenario than menstruating!"

"I know, but to be fair the female reproductive system had never even been taught to me at that point. All I knew was out of an old text I found in the library at Malfoy Manor on fertility. _Prodigious Progeny_ or something like that. It had the most gruesome description of sex and I really don't want to think about how the author learned some of the tips suggested."

"Good lord, purebloods have had trouble with fertility for ages, I wonder if it could be down to misinformation? I've never really thought about how your lot got its sex education." Hermione seemed deep in thought about the issue of pureblood reproductive education for a few moments before continuing. "The Weasley's just took their kids around the area farms and suggested that they might want to be careful with what they got up to unless they wanted a litter of their own, then taught them about contraception and the spectrum of human sexuality. Ginny never skipped her birth control potion after seeing those pregnant cows."

Draco smirked at this idea of the Weasley's using barnyard animals to teach their children about sex but didn't say anything about it. "Well, at any rate, I mentioned my suspicions to father and he gave me a look I'd only seen him use on particularly troublesome house elves before that. He explained that women have a special time of the month to take care of themselves especially carefully and that I could learn about it at Hogwarts from Madam Pomfrey if I really wanted to know."

"Madam Pomfrey? What a coward!" Hermione was still laughing into his shoulder, a feeling he quite enjoyed. He especially liked knowing that his humiliating childhood memories were distracting her from the cramps, however briefly.

"Yes, well, I think he felt it was unseemly to know very much about the topic beyond what he needed to know to procure a child." He spoke quietly now, as though treading on dangerous ground. "Neither of them ever told me if there was a reason I was on only child or if it was just preference."

Rubbing his chest in a circular motion Hermione quickly eased his discomfort."Oh, I'm sure you could ask your Mother if it was related to the health of the Malfoy bloodline. Surely she'd answer questions about important health matters?"

Draco turned around in her arms to face her and put his hands behind her back. "I'm sure you're right, but based on what Madam Pomfrey told me I don't think I'll need to."

This made Hermione laugh again and Draco was glad to see it this time. The crinkles beside her eye and the dimples in her cheeks as she laughed made her face look more beautiful than any other expression she wore. Happiness was a very sexy quality in Draco's eyes.

"You don't think I was able to resist asking her after Father said I could?" Draco asked teasingly.

Hermione paused her laughing long enough to snort. "At 13? Definitely not! I just don't know how you would have broached the topic." She cleared her throat and started talking with a nasal voice and posh accent. "Madam Pomfrey, as the heir to the Malfoy bloodline I insist you inform me on the complete inner workings of the female reproductive system and why women need to go away for several days each month!"

As he buried his head in her shoulder out of embarrassment he mumbled something unintelligible.

"What was that Draco? I couldn't quite hear that through the humiliation." Hermione said with a friendly yet mocking tone.

"I said you're not that far off." Cheeks turned fully red with embarrassment Draco continued. "I may have said something about wanting to know if there was anything I should practice to improve my reproductive skills."

Hermione's howling laughter echoed around the house as she pictured a young Draco unknowingly asking the poor woman whether he should should masturbate as practice. "Please tell me she set you straight then!"

"Yes, she gave me a copy of _Thestrals and Garden Gnomes_ and told me some touchy feely things about it being natural to want to explore our bodies and what a beautiful thing bringing new life into the world was." Draco scrunched his nose in distaste remembering how happy the medi-witch had been to answer his questions.

"I guess the Weasley's method of sex ed isn't looking so bad right now, is it?" Hermione asked with a smirk that looked suspiciously like his own.

"I reserve the right not to answer questions like that." Smiling at her he leaned down to cuddle her closer to him. "Anyway, I doubt you knew that most garden gnomes are born intersex and their adult sexual practices typically involve finding root vegetables to use as aphrodisiacs."

"What? _Thestrals and Garden Gnomes_ actually tells you about thestrals and garden gnomes?" Hermione asked confusedly.

"Of course it does! What kind of strange book title would that be otherwise?" Draco raised his right eyebrow at her.

"Well, muggles teach kids about sex by talking about 'the birds and the bees' but it's not exactly a detailed account of the mechanics."

"Hermione, I love you, but muggles are weird about some things." Draco began kissing her neck and slowly started making his way towards her lips. "How would birds or bees be helpful to learning about sex at all?" With that he sealed his mouth against hers in a searing kiss that left her a bit disoriented.

"What were we talking about?" Hermione asked.

"I don't know. I've been trying to find ways to make you feel better." He kissed her again. "They say orgasms are supposed to reduce cramps - care to give it a try?"

"Where did you read that, in _Thestrals and Garden Gnomes_?" Hermione asked, alarmed at the idea of wizards somehow knowing this detail about either of the magical creatures.

"No, you silly witch. I read a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine while I was waiting for you at your dental appointment with your parents last week. It was a very informative publication - did you know that there are eighteen ways to give a blowjob?"

"Oh that trashy thing! Well, I don't know about 18, but I can think of at least two ways that you seem to enjoy." Hermione whispered into his ear. "And I like your idea about reducing my cramps. It really does work, you know!"

Draco laughed. "Oh? Who told you that?"

"My mother, of course!"

"Oh gods, let's not talk about our parents anymore if you want any cramp reduction services!"

Smiling at him, Hermione thought he made a good point and kissed him. At 13 she would never have imagined what an absolute teddy bear Draco could be, but she was glad to be wrong about that and so many other things regarding him.

"Let's take a nap first before you try rendering any of your services lover boy."

He gave her a kiss on the nose. "Whatever you need, I'm yours."


End file.
